Oxbridge applicants 2026 - thread 2

[ArchitectureMum]

Someone has to be the OP and I have no fate to tempt now in this journey.

Congratulations to all the Oxford offer holders. Some lovely stories yesterday afternoon.

Comiserations to those who had different news yesterday. I hope your DC are doing ok and beginning to look positively towards their other options.

Good luck to everyone waiting for news from Cambridge on 28th January.

And hello to all the Oxbridge observers - alumni, parents of past and future applicants. It is always a thread of highs and lows and it was a privilege to be a small part of it for this cycle.

Thanks for the reminder! DS gets back from his gap year tomorrow and I'll certainly nag him to get it done.

Anxiety about results day is creeping in! Wishing all the best to everyone.

Wishing everyone the very best of luck, too!

Dd trying to keep busy and not think about it!

DD's really starting to worry she might not quite make the grade in one of her A-Levels. Am I right in thinking there's no room for negotiation with Cambridge. If you narrowly miss the required grades for your offer, is it worth calling admissions to see if they'll still accept you, or is it not worth even trying?

You can try, they do let people in with missed grades, it will depend on all sorts of factors - background, how the cohort perform. Good luck

It's not common but may be worth trying - DD had a friend who missed by one mark but was accepted...i think for a language course and she was on FSM so I guess may have had contextual help, but still...!

Conversely one of DS's friends missed by one and didn't make it, but tried again the following year and was accepted.

I'm sure all will be well - huge good luck to everyone waiting on tomorrow.

If you have any chance at Cambridge, they will take you. They know how badly you want to come. Best to preserve your dignity.

I am in STEM the tier below COWI and the same applies. Occasionally I have heard from people who believe that ringing us up made a difference. I have never disabused them, but it has no effect at all. No selecting School makes decisions on the basis of pleas.

With recruiting Schools, it might make a difference. I would certainly ring a School in Clearing although arguably (almost?) everyone with a chance is accepted anyway.

🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞for DD and all applicants!!

PS If there are mitigating circs by all means ring! But be prepared to supply evidence upon request or, better yet, to offer it.

Thanks, do you mean they might take a student who narrowly misses the grades?
No mitigating circumstances that they're not already aware of (autistic).

It’s definitely worth emailing and getting her school to call and email. In my DD’s cohort some colleges had higher requirements for a course than others, say 2A stars for humanities or 3A stars for STEM, and even though they missed their offer at that particular college, they were put in the summer pool and were picked up by other colleges that gave out an Astar AA offer. Some more prestigious, central colleges even. DD and her cohort graduated this year and some of the pooled ones graduated with a first.

If however she misses the faculty typical offer, it may be trickier. We know students that had an AstarAA offer in a humanity subject , got 3 As and unfortunately were not accepted. All the very best of luck for tomorrow!

It’s good that they are aware of SEN. Obviously Cambridge is more competitive than we are. When we have flex, which isn’t often, we look for objective ways to relax the offer.

It is well known informally that as a cohort SEN pupils have more than their share of bad breaks. Therefore it’s quite conceivable that ‘let’s consider SEN applicants first amongst the near misses’ could be a consideration. Only Cambridge can know.

I know how hard this is! If it is any consolation, more often than not my iwn tutees on the autistic spectrum have underestimated their exam performances. I very much hope the same is true of DD.

PS Realistically, in most subjects Cambridge probably has little flex. I know, for example, that they usually make about twice as many Maths offers as they have places for and set the grade boundaries on the notorious STEP exam to control their intake.

That’s likely a different School to DD’s but it is a rather brutal approach.

DS studied a STEM subject at Cambridge and said a very large % of the cohort were diagnosed and on the ASD spectrum - so they are very aware of SEN applicants and their needs. Good luck for tomorrow!

Good luck to everyone for tomorrow. It’s a weird feeling that it’s all set in stone and yet we are in the dark 😖. Really hope DD gets what she needs (either for Cambridge or her insurance of St Andrews). She will be super happy with either🤞🤞

@WhereAreWeNow obviously I don’t have experience of this, but the meet the holder day at DDs offer college mentioned missing requirements by one mark. They specifically said to call them first thing, but the offer holder day was for whole college and not subject wise, so I am not sure if that line applies to all subjects, DDd being one of the super competitive one!
Hope it will work out okay and we wouldn’t need all these, but also it was nice to hear them say that.

Pooling is also a good strategy.

It’s not a strategy as such. The College decides whether to put you in the pool subject to your grades. Cambridge’s website also details what to do if you miss your offer. https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply/after/exam-results

😐fingers crossed for everyone’s DC in a couple of hours.
I’m really surprised that my DS’s large sixth form college just upload the results to a portal. Are the days of going in to get an envelope done, or is it just his place?

I am surprised how many people are still getting envelopes. Portal all the way here. Sad in a way but can be done on the dot of 8 in the privacy of home. Good luck everyone.

Massive Good luck to all so, glad Results day is finally here.

Blimey, everyone! Good luck!

I’ve been lurking on this thread for a while
as we’re just about to start the process and this will be dd (hopefully) this time next year.
Best of luck to everyone.

Good luck to everyone. I am more nervous for my child's results who will do so much better than me then I ever was for my own.

Just hopping on this thread from the long running Oxbridge students thread to say good luck to everyone! This was us in 2020. The UCAS portal froze at 8am, so D1 literally ran to school to get her results while we carried on refreshing on UCAS. She got an email from her (Oxford) college en route to school with the good news. D1 and her lovely bf (they met at Oxford) have just finished their postgrads and are about to start actual jobs

I've got my fingers crossed for you all!